


Too Busy Being Yours

by auselysium



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, I'm going to call this canon adjacent, M/M, but it's really basically an au, no one is an alien, or if they are it doesn't have anything to do with the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-02-27 06:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18733066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: The end of Alex's enlistment period is coming and his commanding officer wants to hold a ceremony to honor him.And he wants Alex to bring a date.Fake dating AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canon adjacent - things still sort of happen like we know it but not quite.
> 
> Also, no aliens. Everyone is just a boring old human.

A piece of American bureaucracy was spread across the Wild Pony bar. Tiny boxes, outlined in black ink, like a tax form, ticked off and filled-in with details in a font that looks like it came from an actual typewriter. Alex put his beer down on the corner, as if to hold it down from a non-existent breeze, and a semi-circle of condensation wicked into the paper.

Manes, Alex James. C-4294 _Release from active duty effective as of_ ...Decorations: Presidential Citation Life Saving. Purple Heart. Iraq. Character of Service: _Honorable_.

It was surreal. A decade of service in the United States Air Force and now his enlistment period was finally coming to a close. By Friday a 17:00 hours, Alex would be a normal, tax-paying civilian.

There had been days - long, exhausting, _terrifying_ days - where Alex hadn’t been sure he had it in him to see his military commitment through to the end. From his bed in the makeshift hospital in Fallujah, his consciousness breaking through the morphine drip to hear the battalion medics scramble to expidite his transfer to Germany, because “We aren’t equipped handle this type of injury”, that thought had been quite literal.

“We know it’s not usually done,” General Grey had said earlier that day as Alex had attempted to exit the admin building with his walking papers without getting noticed. He’d smiled at Alex with the carefree ease of a peacetime officer. “But we’d love to acknowledge your last official day on base. It seems only right, considering the excellence of your service and your family’s legacy with the Air Force.”

Of course they’d want to celebrate him. The Manes man. Son of the Master Sergeant.  Alex’s jaw had clenched even as he’d saluted the base commander and agreed on a place and time.

Alex had driven straight to the Wild Pony in search of some self-medicating. Not healthy, but necessary. A few hours later and his whole world was happily cushioned by an IPA-infused buffer, so his strategy was working out just fine.

“Bring family, some friends. A special someone,” General Grey had suggested, only being kind by offering to include important people in Alex’s life in this important moment. But even the microbrew from Colorado with a 9.4% alcohol content couldn’t help him with that predicament.

He folded up his discharge papers and slipped them into his coat pocket.

“You’re not around this Friday, are you?” He asked Maria as she brought over a newly filled pint glass. He hadn’t even ordered it so he must have that “look” about him. She handed over the glass, following with a rag when a bit of the foam tipped over the side.

“If by ‘around’ you mean working my tail feathers off behind this bar, right here, until 2am then, yes, I am.” She gave him a perky, if skeptical, smile. Maria always seemed to breeze through the world, handling friends and crazy locals with similar ease. She had had an empathetic heart, able to read people’s emotions and ready to lend an ear. It was part of the trade Alex supposed. But she’s always been especially kind to Alex, even when she had every right not to be.

“Never thought I’d be on the asking end of your social calendar.” She rested her elbows on the bar and propped her chin on two-fists. Her bracelets fell towards her elbows, their silvered jangle matching the steel guitar chords of the country song playing on the bar speakers. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Something’s come up for Friday and I’m supposed to bring someone. I’m just kind of striking out.” Alex shrugged, not really wanting to get into it with her.

Liz, who would have been his first choice, was out of town with Max that weekend and Isobel….well just... _no_. Same went for any of his useless brothers. Not like he wanted his father there, but with his recently assigned to a training mission in Africa, he wasn’t an option either. That really only left Kyle.

His phone pinged in his pocket and he slipped it out with a glimmer of hope. Maybe Kyle could come...But Kyle, he read the text, was on call. Alex sighed.

_Great._

He set the phone down on the bar and folded his arms glumly. Was his friend pool really this shallow?

“Well, you could always ask…”

Maria nodded over his shoulder and Alex turned towards the pool table.

“Guerin?” Alex balked.

Michael was bent over the green felt, cue held in the strong fingers of both hands. His ripped jeans were tight in all the right places, his curls aggressively messy and his jaw covered in scruff. The few buttons done up on his shirt just barely passed the “no shirt, no shoes, no booze” policy Maria (loosely) enforced.

The sight of him still made Alex’s heart flutter, even after all this time.

“Why would you of all people suggest that I…”

Maria placed a hand on Alex’s arm, a rush calm going through him. He looked down to see purple-painted nails closed around his wrist.

“High school was a long time ago, Alex. Water under the bridge, if you ask me. Besides, we both know he’s not bad after a shower.”

Her right eyebrow arched playfully and her lips, shimmering a pretty pink shade in the low light of the bar, pursed into a sweet smile.

Alex watched Michael sink the eight-ball into the corner pocket, winning the game. He offered a conciliatory handshake to the man he’d just beaten, a crisply folded twenty left behind in his palm.

He and Michael were friends, he supposed. Up for some idle chit-chat, or a night around a card table with a bottle of tequila and carefully chaperoned by other people. Though “friends” always felt like an overly simplistic word to explain all they’d been to each other. In this small, freakshow of a town, where everyone knew everyone else’s business and relationships got messy (overlapping and crossectioning to the point of being borderline incestuous for those people who stuck around or came back), it was too hard to hold onto high school grudges.

Alex and Maria had found a way to repair their relationship in the few months he’s been home since his last deployment to Iraq, while his and Michel’s has maintained a hardened border, stuck around a fixed point that neither of them have dared touch.

Sometimes, on one of those tequila nights, he would catch Guerin’s eye and feel the shame and regret radiate off him as he looked, unblinking, at Alex. To see Michael’s golden eyes fill with that kind of remorse was almost unbearable. But it was a good reminder of what could never be. Regardless of what could have been, once.

The first time he and Michael had kissed, Michael been dating Maria.

It had been senior year and Michael and Maria had made sense as a couple, - the foster-system, genius, rebel, and the beautiful, flower-child who wore ribbons in her hair. They seemed to float above the rest of their classmates, cutting class together to sit out in the quad, as if flaunting their truancy. Maria would weave dandelions into necklaces while Guerin plucked out songs from Ok Computer on his guitar.

 _No, scratch that._ Alex’s guitar.

“What the hell, Guerin? You can’t just steal instruments from the music room. This is mine.”

Alex had found him on that spring afternoon after school, sitting out by the football stadium in the bed of his green pickup truck. Bed, being the key word. There had been pillows, a sleeping bag and a holey blanket bunched up in the back corner. Prom was only a few weeks away, graduation and summer break on the horizon, but Alex’s first thought had still been, _That’s not enough to keep him warm at night._

He’d always considered himself Maria’s friend, because she was friends with everyone. But Michael, was a harder shell to crack. An aloof loner who was quietly soft with his cousins, Isobel and Max but sat in the back of their AP Calc class, his black Chucks propped up on the desk in front of him, answering Mrs. Chapman’s questions with an amount of lip Alex would never dare. Somehow, he still aced every test. Alex had been fascinated by, and crushing on, Michael Guerin for way longer that he’d been willing to admit.

Guitar returned to its rightful owner, a breeze, carrying a hint of a chilly desert night to come falling across Alex’s face, he’d stopped.

“There’s this tool shed, out behind my house. It’s warm. I go there when things get bad,” Alex had known he was revealing a lot but had felt ready to.

It had taken a while for Michael to process the offer, his face going long and still. “Ok,” was all he’d said.

“But maybe, don’t try to sneak Maria in. My dad…”

Michael had snickered, the sound disarming Alex and making him smile softly. “Hey, I get it. No worries.”

“Just text me. When you’re ready for it.”

He had that very night.

At first, having Michael there was a mix of anxious worry his dad might find out and butterflies at knowing Guering was that close by. But over time, Alex got used to it and the nerves were replaced by familiarity. The light coming on around 9pm to let him know Michel had once again successfully snuck through the back gate. The growl of his truck, starting up where he’d parked it down the block out of sight, first thing in the morning meant he’d see him at school in an hour or so.  

The butterflies though, those stayed.

When things got bad at the Manes house, which they invariably did, Alex would join Michael in the shed, a bowl of popcorn and a DVD on his laptop as a peace offering. Or a shared joint and laughter so hard his cheekbones hurt, if Michael was the one doing the offering.

Alex’s crush became unwieldy. This great, unbearable thing that felt like euphoria when Michael intervened in his fight with Kyle Valenti and his petty slurs at Prom. And like torture when he’d seen him kissing Maria before class the following Monday.

The only way to unload himself had been to act.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Michael asked one night in June.

Alex had laughed, cause surely his feelings had been as obvious as a zit on the tip of the Homecoming Queen’s nose, by that point. But Michael had simply looked on, waiting for an honest answer as if he couldn’t quite put all of Alex’s motivations together.

“People don’t always have an agenda.” Alex had kept smiling even as the words had come out, sounding awkward to his own ears. “They can just be nice to each other for no reason sometimes.”

His brothers guitar had looked good in Michael’s hands. Sounded good, too.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Alex had said, matching Michael’s pristine sincerity. The tension between them had been like a hand around his throat. If he didn’t kiss Michael right in that moment he would, literally, die from the never knowing. He’d looked to Michael’s lips then back again. Laid every curiosity, every secret fantasy, every tender thought he’d ever held about Michael Guerin across his face and leaned in.

“Alex, I…”

A bolt of lighting straight to his heart would have been kinder. Alex had wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and tried to swallow down the rejection with as much self respect as possible.

“It’s not that I...It’s just. I can’t.”

Alex hadn’t even been thinking. _Maria_. He’d exhaled hard.

Michael’s lips had been flushed, still parted in a way that was just unfair. “I’m sorry, I...I can go if…”

“No, don’t be ridiculous.” Alex had smiled. He’d been good, in those days, of presenting a calm exterior, even when a storm of pain or anger or hurt was brewing inside. His father had taught him some life skills, in the end. “Play me something.”

It had only been a few days later when Michael had shown up during his shift at the Desert Life Emporium and asked to talk.

“Ok, talk,” Alex had said and Michael had just kissed him. There had been no hesitation, no shame. Just a gentle smile after, the likes of which Alex had never been gifted with before by anyone, and the assurance this was absolutely what he wanted.

“Have you done this before?” Alex had asked, back in the tool shed later. Michael had shook out his curls as he lifted his white t-shirt off over his head.

“Oh boy. _Yeah_. But not, like, with a…”

“With a guy?” Alex had giggled, breathless and carefree. “With a guy?” It felt so effortless, just being with Michael. Alex hadn’t been able to keep himself from running his hands over Michael’s biceps, even as he asked another question.

“What about Maria?”

“We broke up. Yesterday.”

“You did?"

Michael had smiled, warm and slightly awkward, his palm falling to Alex’s chest. “I told her that I had a crush on someone else. More than a crush...actually.”

All air had gone out of the room and straight to Alex’s head like a high. He’d felt like he was spinning, so he’d held onto the one thing keeping him grounded: Michael’s hand over his heart. With an exhaled breath, and a step in, Alex had kissed Michael again. Gently at first, then heedless.

Alex had lost his virginity right there on the musty futon in the tool shed. He’d slept next to Michael all night long, waking to Michael’s chest bare, Alex’s hair a jagged mess.

“You have to be anywhere today?” Michael had asked, his voice a sweet sounding rasp. Alex had shook his head against his pillow and they’d stayed in bed. All day. Exploring, kissing, coming, doing, never holding back.

That shed was nothing, just bare walls, a whole bunch of deer antlers and a few electrical outlets, but it had started feel like home in those twenty-four hours.

But on the morning of the second day, his father to barged in on them the morning of the second day, still sleeping, and that home he and Michael had found became unsafe, too.

His father had put two and two together. All the nights Alex had been gone missing, the stench of pot smoke and sex that must have lingered in the air. He had assumed Alex was using this tool shed as some sort of den of sin, where Alex had brought all his damnable lovers. When in reality it had only been Michael.

It had only ever been Michael.

“This ends now,” his father had said, his voice like a gavel.

At least his father had saved Alex’s thumping for after Michael had left. Alex was pretty sure he wouldn’t have survived the indignity of Michael bearing witness to a beating in addition to the heartbreak.

He was kept under, almost literal, lock and key until he’d left for Basic Training at the beginning of July. His father had monitored his phone closely, but even so, Alex had texted Michael every day for over a week. And every day, when his father would relinquish his phone for a few hours in the evening, all of Alex’s texts to Michael would be read but not replied to.

Eventually, he got the drift. Even if Michael hadn’t been totally freaked out by sleeping with a guy, why bother getting involved with someone who had as messed up a father as he did? Alex clearly just hadn’t been worth the effort for Michael.

Alex had seen him one last time that summer, as he’d boarded the bus that would take him over the border to Texas and from there to Lackland Military base. Michael had been walking out of The Crashdown, a soda cup in one hand and the other wrapped firmly around Maria’s shoulders.

But with six weeks of rigorous training ahead and a presumed Middle East deployment after that (and all the tears he could possibly shed, already having been cried out) Alex had found, he just didn’t have it in him to be upset anymore. Michael getting back with his girlfriend had been a postmortem shot. The damage was already done.  

“You up for a game?” Michael said as he looked up from where he was re-racking the pool balls on the table. He lined them up so they lay in a perfect triangle, numbers facing upwards. Alex trailed his fingers over the glossy mahogany table, beer still in hand.

“Not if you’re going to hustle me like you did that last guy. I know how you work, Michael Guerin.”

Michael gave Alex a crooked smile, clearly enjoying Alex’s slightly flirtatious tone. Alex set his beer down, realizing he’s had enough.

Pulling his tongue across his lower lip in a way that was also not so subtle, Michael aligned himself over the lip of the table and broke the game open with a crack. His shirt fell away from his body, the gap revealing the v of his collarbone and the hair covering his chest. Alex hated how he could remember the feel of his nose pressed against Guerin’s breast bone. The smell of him.

Alex cleared his throat loudly as Michael moved around to the opposite side of the table for his next shot.

“Are you around this Friday?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t really leave Roswell, like, _ever_ , so...Yeah. Why?”

“I have this...thing and I’m supposed to bring a plus one.”

Michael stood upright, propping the pool cue on the floor like a hiker’s stick. “What thing?”

Alex felt his shoulders align over his hips, his feet come together almost by habit. “My honorable discharge from the Air Force.”

Michael nodded his head slowly, his lower lip coming out in a considering pout.  “Finally getting out, huh?”

Alex laughed softly, tilting his head slightly to one side. “In case you forgot, I’ve been out since high school.”

Michael simply rolled his eyes, his head falling back at Alex’s lame quip. He maneuvered towards the corner pocket, propping his right hip up on the edge and sinking the two and seven ball in an impressive bank shot. Pool was a game of geometry and probability; no wonder Guerin was a total shark. His genius was totally wasted on car engines.

“Liz and Max are out of town this weekend, but you know that, I’m sure. I’m really not up for the awkwardness of going with Isobel. Maria has to work. Kyle is on call…”

“Hold up,” Michael stopped him with a hand, working his way around the near corner. “You asked Valenti _before_ me? Oh, I see how it is, now.”

“I just wasn’t sure that you’d…I wasn’t sure it would be your kind of thing.” Michael made an unimpressed sound at the back of his and sunk another ball in the side pocket. “Everyone’s going to be in dress blues, with some probably really cliche speeches and some shitty appetizers. And It’s going to be small. Just the higher-ups from the Base and a certificate in a frame. Don’t expect, like, a four plane fly over, or anything like that. It’s really not that big of a big deal.”

Michael pulled face a that froze Alex’s words in his mouth. “You’re leaving the military, Alex. After a decade and three tours in a war zone.” Had Guerin been keeping track?

“You never having to get shipped off to god knows where to get shot at again?”  Alex wasn’t sure but he thought Michael looked down at his missing leg. “That sounds like a pretty big fucking deal to me. Just text me when and where,” Michael added. “I’ll be there.”

Alex slowed his breath down, steadied himself against the pool table as Michael bypassed him to finish his game.

This had been a horrible idea.


	2. Chapter 2

The ceremony, as promised, had been nothing fancy. American, New Mexico State and United State Air Force flags acted as Alex’s backdrop as he stood at parade rest next to Brigadier General Grey, the man who had been his boss for the duration of his last assignment. He’d spoken kind words about Alex’s tours in the Middle East, offered up memories of Alex as child, running around the parade grounds with his brothers, “just another one of the Manes boys, a total military brat from day one.”

Officers and enlisted men and women had filled the space with shades of blue, their lapels covered in colored ribbons and brass buttons or decked in head to toe camouflage, their thick dessert tan boots firmly on the ground.

It made had made Guerin, all cowboy-curves, stick out all the more where he lounged in the back of the room as he watched, a constant upturn to the corner of his mouth that looked like pride to Alex.

Alex had driven them. He would have to show his ID to get Michael on base so it had made sense. It hadn’t been like he'd wanted to pick Michael up or anything for this very much, not-a-date thing they were going to. Alone together. On a Friday night.

“Are you wearing...dress pants?”

Alex’s eyes had instantly been drawn to the nice charcoal grey, wool Michael had donned as he stepped out of the Airstream earlier than evening. Micheal, hand still frozen on the door, had given himself a perplexed once over, as if suddenly worried he’d mis-dressed.

He’d clearly put in some effort. He’d showered, half shaved, run a comb through his hair. The pants in question looked soft to the touch and they fit like a dream over his narrow hips and thighs. Paired with a dark green shirt (fully buttoned, this time) and a dark leather jacket with a lamb’s wool collar, Guerin almost looked...elegant. In an entirely rugged kind of way.

Michael had stuck his hands in his pockets, and skipped down the trailers front steps. “Yeah, you know. I keep a pair around for when I have to appear in court.”

“You wha..?”

“Alex, I’m kidding.” Michael had said, before his paranoia even had any time to establish itself fully. He’d rocked back onto the heels of the cowboy boots that poked out from the nicely tailored hem and clicked his toes together.

“These are left over from Isobel and Noah’s wedding.”

“Right.” Alex had huffed, his shoulders relaxing under his epaulets. “You do look...nice.”

His tone had been purposely casual but Michael’s most certainly hadn’t.

“So do you.”

Alex had felt his neck turn red under the high crisply-paired collar of his dress shirt and cobalt blue jacket on his Air Force dress blues.

“Should we go?” He’d said, turning quickly towards his car before the blush spread. Even Guerin’s feet against the gravel as he’d walked towards Alex’s car had sounded smug.

And yet, as Alex’s eyes scanned the ceremony room and landed on Michael, and his lifted his hand to give Alex a sloppy, two fingered salute under the brim of his hat, Alex realized he was glad Michael was there.

Guerin knew Alex in a way no one else in that room ever would: the boy before the soldier. Not Jesse Manes' son, but the kid who’d rather have a guitar in his hand than a gun. Even if Michael regretted what happened between them after (why else would have gotten back together with his girlfriend), he’d had Alex at his most hopeful. His most innocent.

No other lover would ever have him whole.

The silver side of Michael’s Airstream lit up atomic-silver in the beam of Alex’s headlights. The “NO ~~FREE~~ PARKING” sign was a bold and dismissive greeting.

Wheels over gravel came to a stop. And once Alex turned off the engine, leaving the keys to dangle in the ignition, the lights of his jeep cut out too, leaving only the dark quiet of the desert around them.

For those who hadn’t grow up around the bush weeds and sandy flats that seem to stretch forever outside Roswell’s city limits, Alex could see how the empty darkness around the scrapyard might feel ominous, but Alex liked the noises - the constant hum of night bugs, the errant scuttle over parched earth, the occasional howl or bark - that came from the pitch black blanket around them. He assumed Michael did too, or else he wouldn’t have chosen to set up his trailer way out at Foster Ranch.

“Thank you,” Alex said, into the quiet. “I’m sure that was really not how you wanted to spend your Friday night.”

“Well, I might have only understood half the jargon and none of the inside jokes, but hanging around a bunch of people I didn’t know who probably didn’t want me there to begin with? Drinking more than my fair share of free booze? Sounds like pretty standard Friday night, if you ask me.”

Alex’s laugh was a tired sounding thing, and it hung in the evening quiet. Michael braced the back of his head on the head rest and pivoted so his gaze was locked on Alex’s. The curls were free, his hat perched over one knee.

“It was kinda cool to see you like that. All...official.”

“Officially not official now,” Alex said. He undid the buttons on he front of his coat, letting the flaps flop open which is strictly against protocol, as if to prove the point.

“So what’s your plan, then?”

“My plan ?” Alex snorted softly through his nose. “My plan is to go home, get out of this business.” He gestured at himself. “I’ll probably binge watch an entire season of Schitt’s Creek before I pass out, preferably after I’ve eaten my weight in Ben and Jerry’s.”

“Not that I’m putting down your evening’s to do list, cause it sounds pretty perfect, if I’m being honest, but what I meant was, what’s your plan plan? You know,” he lifted his hands in an expressive arc, his eyes going wide with dramatic wonder. “Civilian Alex Manes’ excellent adventure?”

Alex snorted. “Not like I haven’t been asked that a million times already this week.”

“Sorry,” Michael said, his face dropping.

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Alex amended. “The truth is, I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve thought about college. Trying to work in the private contracting sector. Maybe just volunteering for returned Vets for a bit. Or something completely different? But really, I don’t have a fucking clue.”

Michael's face relaxed, his eyes opening and closing softly. Alex was struck by his stillness, his receptiveness. When had Michael Guerin become a grownup?

“For the first time in my life,” Alex continued. “If someone tells me to jump, I don’t have to ask ‘how high’. First it was my dad giving the orders, then my commanding officer. Then my dad as my commanding officer. I guess I just need some time to figure out what my life looks like now.”

The smile that broke of Michael’s face built slow, like the sunrise over a mesa. It impacted every bit of musculature from his chin to his brow line. Every corner, every dimple of skin and it filled Alex’s chest with an ache so deep, he couldn’t help but lean into the expressive pain. Press it in deeper as if to contain it. Embrace the beautiful way Michael Guerin was looking at him, so full of respect and approval, just in case Michael never looked at him like that again.

“I think that’s a great plan,” Michael stated and Alex was thankful for the gear shifter, providing a defined borderline to hold him back from something reckless.

Michael adjusted his hat back on his head and swung himself out of the jeep, every motion broad and graceful at the same time. “Night, Alex,” he said and tapped the top of Alex’s jeep twice in dismissal.

“Good night, Michael.”

Alex smiled to himself as Michael nearly tripped over himself at the sound of Alex using his given name. The smile remained long after he put the Jeep into reverse and pulled away.

 

*

A few days later, a pounding at the front door to the cabin pulled Alex away from the novel he was reading. It was something thick and wordy (in translation, no less) that Max had given him as a “retirement” present. Alex had finally gotten around to starting it and he hated it. The unexpected guest was a welcome excuse to put it aside.

“Michael?”

Michael pushed his way into the cabin, bumping against Alex’s shoulder as he did. His movements were erratic, his face drawn with panic.

“I fucked up, Alex.”

Alex’s mind immediately went to the worst. Resolute, his soldier instincts kicked in.

“What did you do? Did you steal something? Was it drugs?”

Michael’s face pinched. “What? No ! Jesus, Alex, do you seriously...?”

Then as if deciding he really didn’t want to know the answer to that question, he threw his hat on Alex’s couch and fell into the closest chair. His long legs splayed out in front of him as he let out of heavy sigh. Alex sat slowly opposite him, still totally perplexed.

“I’m sorry, but you should tell me what’s going on before I jump to any more conclusions.”

It was the first time he’d seen Michael since their night on base and in Alex’s jeep. He looked much more himself, now. Muted grey plaid shirt tucked up over his belt buckle, five o’clock shadow in full effect even though it wasn’t even 10am. But the air of Alex’s cabin was already filling with the smell of him: earthy and spicy. He hadn’t worn that scent in high school, but Alex already loved it.

“I just…” Michael gestured towards the sky, hands falling desperately back to his lap. His voice had a tired whine to it. “I just wanted a cup of coffee.”

“Guerin, knowing your morning drink order is not helping.”

“I saw him. That guy from Friday night? You know,” he continued at Alex’s still confused look. “The old, bald guy. With all the brass. The one who gave the speech?”

“General Grey?”

“I guess? Is that his name?”

Alex nodded with a cautious, “Ok. I guess it’s a little weird that he’d be off base this time of day but I don’t see how just seeing him is you ‘fucking up’ unless you his smashed his car and then told him to just have Uncle Sam to pay for it.”

“No,” Michael said, leaning over his knees. His hands hung limp, veins prominent under his skin as he pined Alex with a look. “He invited us to dinner at his house tomorrow night.”

Alex could hardly even blink, his jaw hanging lamely. “I...don’t understand.”

“I went in to the Crashdown this morning for a cup of coffee to go, but this guy was in line behind me and he starts talking to me, saying ‘Oh, I recognize you from Alex’s ceremony on Friday. How nice that you came.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, free booze. Men in uniform. It was great.’”

Alex pressed his lips between his teeth, trying to imagine General Grey and Michael engaged in idle chit-chat. About him, no less. It was as ludicrous as it was adorable.

“I tried to leave, you know, _politely_ , but then he asked how long I’d known you and I said since high school, but that we’d kinda reconnected since you got back into town.”

A shyness crept into Michael’s eyes with that statement and his eyes ticked up to Alex’s for half a second, needing to confirm that he wasn’t way off the mark. Alex gave a single tight nod and an encouraging smile.

“So then he started going on about how happy he is that you ‘found someone’,” Michael’s eyes went wide, with inference. “Cause he knows about your dad, I guess, and knows he didn’t make it easy when you came out and that’s when I realized…”

Alex stood as realization sank to his gut like a lead weight.

“He thinks we’re a couple.”

“I tried to tell him,” Michael explains, standing too. “But he just said something about ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell being over years ago’ and supporting your right to get married.”

Alex let out a protracted groan, rubbing his hands heavily over his face. He’d never hidden his sexuality, especially towards the end of his military career. He had long since established himself as an admirable soldier, but he always kept his private life, minimal as it was, a safe distance from his work life.

“This still doesn’t explain why he wants us to come to dinner.”

“Well,” Michael said squarely, as if this whole situation couldn’t get any more bizarre. “Turns out General Fancy-pants has a daughter who’s just come out and he’s eager to prove to her that he’s not some conservative, military stiff who’s not okay with gay people. What better way than invite recently retired war hero Alex Manes and his townie boyfriend over for dinner?” He lifted a hand towards Alex before pointing at himself.

“Fuck,” Alex said, dropping back to the couch.

“Yeah, my word exactly.”

Michael sat back down on the edge of his seat. Their knees nearly touched. He was quiet for a few moments, letting Alex stew with his thoughts.

“What do we do?” Michael eventually asked. “I mean, we don’t have to go. I told him I’d have to check your schedule. You aren’t beholden to this guy any more, Alex. No more jumping, right?”

Alex could kiss him just for remembering.

“But he’s a two-star general" Alex reasoned.  "A good referral from him would go a long way when I start applying for jobs or school. I know I have no right to ask you to do this but…”

A quick series unreadable emotions passed through Michael’s eyes. He rolled his jaw, his nose flaring with an intake of breath.

“He said 7 o’clock. I’ll drive.” Michael stood and grabbed his hat all in brash one movement. His boots were heavy against the wood-planked floor.

“Michael.”

His name froze him again. The angle of shoulders looked uneasy but they relaxed as he turned back to see the worry on Alex’s face.

“I know it’s ridiculous.” _And cruel_ , Alex thought. “If it makes you uncomfortable…”

“It’s fine. If it’ll help you out then…” Michael sighed and repeated, “It’s fine.”

Alex crossed his arms over his chest, rubbing at his biceps. He smiled to try and ease the moment. “You really think you can pretend to be my boyfriend for a night? ”

Michael let out a breath. He settled his hat back on his head, tilting the brim slowly, back to front. He turned towards the door, his face cast in angsty profile, his eyes closing for a long beat.

“Time was, Alex, I wouldn’t have had to pretend.”

He didn’t look back as he slipped out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

The awkwardness between them was palpable as they trundled down the long, dusty road to General Grey’s house, their shoulders jostling in sync as the blown-out shocks on Michael’s truck contended with potholes.

Michael had barely said a word the entire drive. Eyes firmly on the road, fists twisting on the steering wheel as if stealing himself for what was coming. Alex felt positively sick about the whole affair. Not only was he lying to a military official, whom he’d respected for the duration of his career, but Michael’s proximity was a protracted torment to his inner seventeen-year-old.

The bruised point in their joint history had re-emerged a garish shade of purple. Michael’s departing words, tossed over his shoulder with such overt remorse the day before, had cast a blinding light on the tender and shadowed wound that they, through their silence, had agreed not to touch.

_Wouldn’t have had to pretend…_

It had taken Alex ten years, but finally he’d found a place of acceptance, bordering comfort, about their past. Whatever had happened between them hadn’t meant nearly as much to Michael as it had to him. And that was ok. Michael hadn’t suffered like Alex had. Hadn’t had been forced to mourn their aborted beginnings.

Michael had decided he preferred the softness of women. Gone for the easier match verses the complications of the Manes family legacy. Alex didn’t begrudge Michael these things after the life he’d led.

But then Michael would say things like he had the day before- words that intimated something more. Or he would smile at Alex like he’d just set the world on fire and Michael was ready to watch it burn and Alex would be left with uneasy ice in his veins, cold knowledge that he still felt _too much_ for Michael Guerin.

It had to stop.

There would be no more chummy nights around a card table, where the group setting did nothing to mask Michael’s heavy-lidded stares. Definitely no more desperate plus-one invites that turn into sweet conversations in the front seat of Alex’s jeep and smiles that pull at his soul.

And definitely, absolutely no more pretending to be a couple. Cause that just plain hurt.

“This is so stupid,” Alex said under his breath as he stared up the long walkway to the General’s house. It was a typical southwestern home - single level, flat roofed with squared off corners in every color of scorched-earth stucco. There were wiry bushes, covered in red flowers, planted on either side of the front door, a welcoming glow coming from inside.

“Let’s just leave.”

“Why?” Michael asked, as his door slammed from the other side of the truck. He pulled at his belt, tucking the back of his shirt into his dark, unripped jeans. He’d made an effort for Alex’s sake. Again. He looked good. _Again_.

“We already came all the way out here. I’m sure he heard us drive up.”

There was, in fact, movement behind the tastefully shaded front windows, hosts anticipating their guests. Michael’s truck didn’t exactly run stealth quiet.

“It’s just dinner, Alex,” Michael continued. “And I promise not to dribble all of the table.”

Michael flashed him a nervous smile and Alex’s guilt/affection flared again. “Fine.” Alex huffed out a massive sigh. He took one step towards the house before he recoiled, flinching away from the warm tangle of Michael’s fingers with his.

“Are you trying to hold my hand, Guerin?” He snapped.

Michael’s lips parted, his face drawn and caught out. But then something clamped down over his features and he shrugged. “Gotta make it look genuine, right?”

He stretched out his hand between them again, arm at an angle, palm towards Alex. Gingerly, as if afraid of what this touch might do to Alex’s unbalanced emotions, he aligned his hand with Michael’s. He curled his fingers around the backside of Michael’s knuckles. It was an awkward, cumbersome hand hold, but it had the right optics. But before Alex could even take another step, Michael rotated his palm, his calloused skin slipping easily past Alex’s, so that their fingers could become entwined.

“Come on.” Michael tugged gently when Alex’s feet hesitated, too stunned by the feel of Michael’s fingers slotted with his to coordinate the act of walking.

They were greeted by the whole Grey family. It was the first time Alex had seen the general dressed down, corduroys and a sweater with a zip up collar. His wife was blond, at least a decade younger than him. This was clearly a second marriage which would explain why General Grey had a 16 year old daughter at his age.

Alex recognized so much of his teenage self in her, almost instantly. The fierce eye makeup, worn like armor and camouflage all at once. The defensive, cross-armed, eye-rolling stance, that screamed of wanting to be anywhere but here. He felt drawn to her, almost grateful for this opportunity to talk to (or at least be near) a queer kid. Offer her some perspective, the way he’d never been given a glimpse of in his youth.

Plus, it was good to have someone else to focus on besides Michael, even as he turned off his rough sarcasm during dinner, managing to get a napkin into his lap and using the right fork for the salad course. Isobel must have rubbed off on him somewhere along the way.

It almost seemed like they were posed to avoid all potential disaster, and Alex’s blood pressure had reduced to a number that wouldn’t make his doctor think he was primed for a stroke, until, over their brownies a la mode, General Grey asked, “So Alex, how old were you when you knew were you gay?”

He nearly choked on his ice cream as Michael smirked at him from across the table. They’d sat ‘mixed-couples’ as you do when you’re in like kind of company, the angsty teen at the head of the table.

“Dad!” she yelled, making the single syllable word into at least three. She buried her face in hoodie covered fists.

“No, it’s ok,” Alex said, after a quick sip of water to clear his windpipe. “It’s an important thing to talk about in our community. And considering there really is no LGBTQ community here in Roswell to speak of, I’m all you got.”

She lifted her face up, looking to Alex carefully, eye bright blue eyeliner smudged on her lower lids. For the first time that night, her aggressive front seemed to have relaxed and Alex gave her a nod before continuing.

“Truth is, I think I always knew, sir.”

“Gary, please.”

“Gary,” Alex amended, testing the informal address of his superior with an uneasy laugh. Civilian life was full of so many unexpected adjustments. “I always knew I was different, but my dad figured out exactly how different I was before I did. He didn’t take it well.” He smiled quietly to himself at his gross understatement. “It took me a long time to say the words out loud because of the way my dad treated me.” He leaned past Mrs. Grey to make eye contact with her daughter instead. “You’re lucky.”

The general and his daughter shared a loving smile and Alex knew he’d done good with that little tale. _Mission accomplished,_ he thought. Conversation, and evening, over.

“I didn’t know until Alex.”

The tone of Michael’s voice took Alex by surprise. His eyes were distant, lost in the memory of his own journey. Then, as if realizing everyone around the table was watching him, he snapped back to himself.

“I mean...I’d always wondered. But it had always felt like background static, you know, these thoughts I’d have. Fantasies… like a dream before you’re completely asleep.”

Everyone at the table was held rapt by Michael’s honesty, including Alex. He’d never heard such mature and self-reflective words come from his usual smart-alec mouth.

“But it never made sense, you know? I’d only ever liked girls, only ever…” He gestured eagerly instead of using the lewd words, a blush racing across his cheeks, “... _with girls_. But then one day right after graduation Alex tried to kiss me. And I freaked out because how was it possible that I could want something so much? With a guy?”

Memories of that day in the shed raced through Alex's veins like a remembered high as Michael turned his head, placing Alex directly in his line of sight.

“I wised up pretty quickly. Found Alex one day while he was working. The first time I kissed Alex Manes was the first time I made sense to myself.”

His words were like an icy dagger and even as Michael’s gaze held, Alex found himself ripping his eyes away to where his fingers twisted tense in his lap. He couldn’t possibly understand what Michael was playing at anymore.

The hand holding as they walked in, the jovial, almost good-natured, behavior all evening. It was all part of the plot. Michael was proving himself such an incredible actor he should have made a career out of it. But this bullshit story of self-discovery went over the line into the realm of farce.

“You guys have been together since high school?” The daughter asked, still caught up in Michael’s artfully woven tale. Her voice was buoyed up by a bit of hope. Perhaps she too had a crush, a love she hoped would last into the future.

“No,” Alex replied firmly, even as Michael said, “Yes.”

“Well,” he qualified, a bashful, half-look in Alex’s direction. “We weren’t together but my feelings never changed.”

All color drained from Alex’s face.

Perhaps he deserved this? This spectacle. Being made a mockery. He’d asked Michael to do something ludicrous, especially knowing their history, and now he was paying the price.

“I’m sorry, General,” Alex said. “I’m suddenly really not feeling well.”

  
It wasn’t a total lie. He was already on his feet, pushing his chair back under the table, trying to completely avoid the perplexed looks on the Grey family’s faces and what looked like genuine concern on Michael’s.

“Of course, Alex, is there any thing we can do?”

But Alex was already bumbling towards the door, Michael making their excuses as he followed quickly behind.

*

“You gonna puke?”

The headlights of Michael’s truck were two hollow beams of light down a straight, narrow road.

Alex glared out at the night into the empty desert around them, one thumb nail caught frantically between this teeth. All things being equal, vomiting didn't sound like the worst option. But it wouldn't be from any food poisoning or acute illness Alex had picked up. Just his own stupidity.

“Should we go to the ER?” Michael continued. “I can call Kyle...”

“No. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

There was nothing in the world that would get Alex to look at Michael right now. Not a million dollars. Not the urgent worry in his voice.

“Will you at least tell me why we just hightailed it out of there like Bonnie and fucking Clyde?”

“Stop the car.”

“Why?”

“Just stop. The fucking car. Guerin.”

Michael did as he was told, not even bothering to pull over to the side of the road. They hadn’t seen another single vehicle, and probably wouldn’t all the way back to town. He hauled the emergency break up with dramatic insistence, the entire truck bucking with it’s too rapid hault.

Alex stumbled out of the door. The night air, dry and cooled as it was, did little to calm Alex’s fury.

He was pissed at Liz for not being free last Friday. Pissed at Maria for pointing Guerin out that night at the bar, all slinky and gorgeous laid out in the pool table in his ripped jeans. Pissed at the General for his bogus ceremony and offers of dinner. Pissed at Michael for agreeing to any of it.

But mostly pissed at himself. For hoping.

“The hell is going on, Alex?” Alex rarely saw Michael pull at his hair, but he did now, using both hands to wrangle his curls off his face and behind his ears. It revealed a pinched expression of complete exasperation.

Alex scoffed. Like Guerin had the right to be the pissed one.

“You were laying it on a bit thick back there, don’t you think?”

Pacing helped calm his ragged breathing. So Alex walked an unsteady path, heels digging into parts of the road where the compacted dirt gave way to patches of loose sand and gravel.

“That’s what this is about?”

Alex gave a closed lipped hum of assertion.

“Sorry for being an active participant in the conversation.”

“Please. That was complete overkill. ‘Didn’t know myself until Alex kissed me? Feelings never changed?’ Give me a break.”

Through his veil of anger, Alex couldn’t help but quote Michael’s words again and again in his head. Tangling them up with his parting words the night before. Overlapping them with memories of Michael with his arm around Maria, their tryst all but forgotten and images of his fingers caught in Alex’s hair the morning his father had found them. All the ways Michael Guerin has made him feel. Ghosts of his kisses. His touches. The way he’d fallen so quickly in love with him in those few weeks they’d had together in his tool shed.

“I know you must think I’m pathetic, but I never thought you’d be so petty as to toy around with General Grey and that young girl. Why would you make up that kind of stuff up?”

“Make up? Alex!” Unbidden, Alex turns towards the sound of his name like a homing beacon.

Michael held the silence, his chest heaving. His gaze was desperately raw, eyes glinting even in the moonlight.

“I meant every word.”

North might as well have become south. Up to down. Black and white to color. Alex’s world was suddenly, and irrevocably, new.

And completely mind boggling.

“What?” He managed, exhaled on a small ghost of a breath.

“You think you’re the only who’s been holding on this...thing between us? _Shit_ , Alex.” Michael rubbed at his eyes with one hand, the other firmly on his hip. “At least you got to leave town. I was stuck here, just wishing we coulda had more time.”

“Yeah, you seemed real upset about me going. So upset that you were back with your girlfriend before I even left town.”

Michael shook his head adamantly. “I never got back together with Maria that summer. Not ever.”

“I saw you with her, Guerin,” Alex said. “The day I left! You were coming out of the Crashdown and looking awfully chummy.”

  
Michael’s eyes scanned the ground erratically as he flashed through his memory, trying to latch onto that moment Alex was referencing. Then as if finding what he was looking for said, “I’d gotten together with Maria that day to talk about you. To see if she and I still could be friends. I came out to her and told her I thought I was falling in love with you.”

Alex’s mind couldn’t comprehend both those statements at once, both too profoundly epic. So he latched onto the first?

“Came out as what, exactly?”

“I’m bisexual, Alex. I like both. It’s not that complicated.”

“You mean, I’m not the only guy that you’ve been with?”

Michael exhaled loudly, his voice losing it’s urgent edge. “The only one that mattered.”

It was just the two of them on this deserted stretch of road. No one to convince they were together. No one to impress or rebuff with some expected persona.

Alex didn’t want to, but he allowed himself to tap into Michael’s energy. He felt nothing but honesty emanating towards him. When Michael stepped in closer, Alex didn’t back away.

“I texted you everyday after your dad found us. After a few days it became pretty obvious he was deleting my messages because I kept offering up times we could try and meet. Places. Ways I could help you get out but you’d always be replying to something completely different. As if I hadn’t reached out at all. So I tried other things. I called your house once and hand to hang up when one of your brothers answered. I sent Liz to see you.”

“My dad wouldn’t let me see anyone,” Alex said with a timorous shake of his head.

“I figured. That’s why I even came to your house once, in the middle of the night, hoping I could sneak in. But all the lights were off and you’d never told me which bedroom was yours.”

Alex can just see 17-year-old Michael standing in the shade of his backyard, trying to reach out to Alex even as grown-up Alex can’t believe it.

“After a couple of weeks, I realized that if our time together had meant half as much to you as it had to me surely you would have found a way to get in touch, right? You could have texted Liz who could have texted Max who could have relayed a message to me or used a landline or just snuck out a window like you had so many times before. Anything. But you didn’t, Alex.” Michael shrugged meekly, a move that encapsulated so much youthful defeat. “I figured, your dad must have finally won. He’d finally scared you straight. Or at least, he’d finally convinced you that good kids like you aren’t friends with roughneck guys like me. And certainly not boyfriends.”

A pang of heartache throbbed through Alex’s entire body. It felt like a sob.

“No, Michael, I loved you.”

“Loved, huh?” Michael thumbed at his nose, inhaling sharply. “Yeah, well, present tense, ass hole!”

Michael’s voice rang through the night. A very different kind of tension filled Alex's chest as his eyes began to sting.

“All this time...you’ve…”

Michael took another step closer.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you about it ever since you got back. But you’re always just breezing past me, talking about the damn weather. Or we’re hanging out but there are other people there and the setting just isn't right. When you asked me to go to your ceremony last week, I thought...maybe we’d finally have the chance to talk. Now who’s he pathetic one, huh?”

“We’re not pathetic, Michael. We're just connected. Like something…I don't know...”

“Cosmic?”

Michael gave a breathy laugh at his own overly dramatic choice of words.

But here standing beneath this star filled sky, that is exactly what they were. All the years. All the distance. All the decisions. The accidents that brought them to this exact moment. Ten years ago, something way above their pay grade, decided that they were meant to be. That one day, they’d find this patch of dusty road and get a second chance.

Alex closed the space between them. Not to kiss, just to touch. He leaned his forehead against Michael’s, his eyes falling closed. Michael’s hands moved broad and strong over his ribs and his shoulder blades. When they came to rest on the angle of his jaw, tilting his face just so, Alex knew the moment he thought would never be possible was upon him.

Michael Guerin kissed him. And Alex didn’t just understand himself in that moment - his life, his past, his future - he understood the whole damn universe.

*

They left the cabin only twice over the next few days. Once for more coffee and once for more condoms.

“Priorities,” Michael had said, with a roguish grin as he slapped Alex on the thigh and dumped the bag from the pharmacy into his lap.

Somewhere between the first and two-hundredth time they’d made love, Michael had said “I love you, Alex.” Whispered between sheets, in the darkness, safe, with no one the stop them.

“I love you, too, Michael,” Alex had said, present tense and 1000% true.

Monday morning, still in his pajama bottoms, his body deliciously limp and his cheeks aching from so many smiles, Alex walked Michael out to his front porch. He was already dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing all weekend. When he’d been dressed at all, that is.

“You could just stay, you know.”

“I could also just get fired from my job.”

“Sanders would never fire you. You’re the best mechanic in town.”

“I’m not a mechanic if I never show up, though.”

“Look at you, being all responsible.”

“Yeah, well not all of us have military penion of live off of.”

“Hardly,” Alex snorted. He leaned down to where Michael stood one step below to steal a kiss. Michael smiled up at him, just simple and happy. It was a new kind of carefree look for him but Alex was getting very used to it.

Michael cleared his throat.

“So, Isobel has been planning this fundraiser for a while now at the town hall. It’s for like...orphaned puppies, or something?”

Alex crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing Michael with a slight cock to his head and an amused smile playing across his lips. “Ok.”

“Yeah, well. She wants me to come. And, said I could bring someone. If I you know...I could find someone.”

“We won’t be able to pretend we’re dating if we go. People will know us there.”

Michael stepped up, crowding onto Alex’s space. His hands found Alex’s waist and pulled him closer.

“I don't want to pretend about how I feel about you ever again.”

His voice was rough, but his lips were soft as they collided Alex’s. Alex angled his head, slipping his fingers into the curls at the back of Michael’s neck and his tongue into his mouth. Michael groaned, low in his chest, body and will succumbing to Alex's touch.

Alex smiled as he pulled Michael back inside. With any luck, he'd still make Michael late for work.


End file.
